Blue Roses
by Distant Glory
Summary: A collection of Aelia/Acylius writings for the show "Insektors".
1. lover100: 3 Forgiveness

**Author's Notes: **For those of you unfamiliar with it, Insektors is an old children's program that was shown in about 1995, and features the story of two tribes of warring anthropomorphic insects - the bright and cheerful Joyces and the dull and dreary Yuks. It's quite cute, rather funny, and occasionally very touching. The whole series is up on Youtube, and since it only ran to 26 episodes of 12 minutes each, you could probably polish it off in an afternoon if you were so inclined. (I should say that the program was originally French, and was dubbed into English twice - once in North America and once in the UK. I use the NA version.)

Anyway, this 'fic' is really a collection of prompt-related writing I've been working on very sporadically. I figured I might as well post it here as well as on LJ, so here we are.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Insektors.

* * *

"Oh, Aelia. Again?"

Aelia looked up from the kaleidoscope of spilled color and broken glass on the floor of her lab, trying not to scowl. Acylius, standing in the doorway, was not the reason for her anger.

"Yes," she said, bracing her fists on her knees and pushing herself upright. "Again." She walked into Acylius's open arms and rested her head on his shoulder. "He's my brother, and I love him, but sometimes he frustrates me to the point of just _screaming_."

"I don't have a sibling, so I can't really claim to understand." She felt Acylius crane his neck to look at the carnage on the floor. "But I do know what it's like to lose so much work. What did he do this time?"

"Oh, I've no idea," she grumbled. "I came in and he was trying to clean it up."

"At least he was trying to make amends," said Acylius. "I can assure you that the guards that fill in my tunnels do no such thing."

Aelia, who had been opening her mouth to make a scathing retort about the inappropriateness of philosophy when one's work has been set back for weeks, closed it again. After a moment, she giggled. The idea of the Yuk guards attempting to comfort Acylius after filling in yet another of his attempted escape routes was just...absurd.

"Ah," said Acylius. "My ploy was a success!"

Lifting her head off Acylius's shoulder, Aelia tried to frown at him. It was a useless effort. Her lips curved upwards in a smile that mirrored his.

"Did he send you in here?" she asked.

"No, I came by myself," he said. "Another day, another escape attempt, you know how I am."

"I do." Aelia kissed his cheek. "Come on. I suppose I owe Fulgor an apology for snapping at him." She slipped her hand into Acylius's as they walked towards the door. "And he owes you some thanks for putting me in the mood to forgive him."


	2. 1sentence: Theme Set Alpha

These were written as a block-breaking exercise. They are incredibly sappy. You have been warned.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Insektors.

* * *

**1. comfort**  
The web of tunnels under the Stump are a great comfort to Acylius - there's something very reassuring about knowing that he can go see Aelia whenever he wants to.

**2. kiss**  
Aelia's heart fluttered as Acylius kissed her hands - the only thing that could have made that moment better would be if he'd kissed her lips instead.

**3. soft**  
Fulgor isn't sure if it's an inbuilt talent for diplomacy or just the fact that Aelia's so smitten with him, but either way, he's incredibly grateful for Acylius's ability to soften her when she's mad.

**4. pain**  
Watching Aelia recede into the distance was without doubt the hardest thing that Acylius had ever had to do, and he had to close his eyes in the hope that not being able to see it happen would lessen the pain.

**5. potatoes**  
Sometimes Aelia's experiments didn't go so well: even Acylius couldn't find anything good to say about the strange roots she'd managed to grow.

**6. rain**  
Acylius had always thought of rain as the sky's tears, and disliked it; it was Aelia who changed his views when she showed him the new growth after it had rained.

**7. chocolate**  
Beauty, to Aelia, had always meant bright colours; it was only when she met Acylius, with his chocolate brown carapace, that she realised that beauty didn't have to have such a narrow definition.

**8. happiness**  
When Aelia told him that she wished that he could be happy all the time, Acylius took her hands in his and told her that his happiness was all the sweeter for not being constant.

**9. telephone**  
Teknocratus's latest invention was of considerable interest to Acylius - he could definitely see a benefit to being able to talk to people long distances away, and that benefit's name was 'Aelia'.

**10. ears**  
Aelia couldn't bring herself to believe her ears - it was only Acylius's earnest expression, increasingly edged with uncertainty, that convinced her that, yes, he had just asked her to marry him.

**11. name**  
When she first told him her name, he experienced a strong sense of satisfaction - it was only fitting that so beautiful a creature would also have a beautiful name.

**12. sensual**  
The first truly sensual pleasure that Acylius experienced was the feeling of Aelia's hand in his.

**13. death**  
Peace between the Yuks and the Joyces had become Acylius's primary concern - because only with the death of war would he have a chance to truly be with Aelia.

**14. sex**  
Despite repeated insistence that it would be better if the child was male, Acylius truly did not care what sex his firstborn was - only that they were healthy.

**15. touch**  
It was only when the moons touched the far horizon that Aelia and Acylius were able to bring themselves to let go of one another - dawn had to find the Yuk prince back in his room, or there would be trouble.

**16. weakness**  
Certainly Krabo and the others thought that his feelings for Aelia made him weak - but Acylius knew, as he stared down the Koleoptor that was hovering over the stricken butterfly, that they were in fact what made him strong.

**17. tears**  
It was only when the Yuk machines had vanished into the distance, taking Acylius with them, that Aelia could bring herself to go back inside - only then that she fled to her room and gave way to tears.

**18. speed**  
Aelia considered it distinctly unfair that time plodded when Acylius was not present, and sped ridiculously fast when he was.

**19. wind**  
When the wind blew from Flower City, Acylius could always be found at the top of the Stump, where he could close his eyes, smell the air, and dream that he was with Aelia.

**20. freedom**  
Every time that Acylius thought he had gained his freedom, he found new chains - he longed for the day when duty and love would bring him to the same place.

**21. life**  
The change that was apparent when Acylius was in Flower City compared to when Acylius was in the Stump had convinced Aelia - time spent in Yukdom was not living, only existing.

**22. jealousy**  
Whenever he was with Fulgor, Acylius had to struggle against certain feelings of jealousy - after all, Fulgor was free, a Joyce, and got to spend as much time as he liked with Aelia.

**23. hands**  
Aelia was shocked when Acylius joined the chorus of protests against her helping in the latest action against the Yuks - until he took her hands in his and told her, "Your hands are meant to create, not to destroy."

**24. taste**  
Acylius would never forget his first taste of terror - it was when he saw Krabo enter the throne room with a cage on the back of the Peripatetik.

**25. devotion**  
The Great Pyro could only nod with satisfaction when he saw Aelia and Acylius holding hands - he knew he would never need to doubt the Yuk prince's devotion to his daughter.

**26. forever**  
Countless generations would pass, but the Prism would always remember the couple that repaired the divide between two races.

**27. blood**  
There was blood dripping between Acylius's fingers as he pressed them over the wound, but he still tried to smile and assure Aelia that it was only a scratch.

**28. sickness**  
When Aelia fell ill, the first thing that Acylius did was march into his mother's throne room and inform her that he would be staying in Joyce territory for some time - and that there would be consequences if she tried to remove him.

**29. melody**  
Acylius had expected it to be hard to learn to dance - but the melody seemed to guide him, and it wasn't long before he and Aelia were whirling in the sky as skillfully as any other couple.

**30. star**  
Aelia gazed up at the night sky and hoped that Acylius was outside tonight - the stars seemed to be the only beauty that he would find in the City of Shadows.

**31. home**  
Acylius had ceased to think of Yukdom as his home long before he first travelled to Joyceland, and meeting Aelia only cemented this - after all, home is where the heart is.

**32. confusion**  
Acylius could hear the guards shouting in confusion as they tried to find him in the maze of tunnels that now stretched beneath the City of Shadows, and couldn't suppress a smile: they shouldn't have tried to stop him from seeing Aelia.

**33. fear**  
Once, Aelia had simply accepted that there would always be conflict with the Yuks, but this has since become her greatest fear - because it would break Acylius's heart, and hers, if they weren't able to be together.

**34. lightning/thunder**  
As lightning slid in sheets over the Prism's surface and leaped into the sky, Acylius and Aelia drew back as one - and both fought their urge to reach for the other's hand.

**35. bonds**  
"I know that you're frustrated, dear," said the Great Pyro, "but the fact that you are unable to break the bonds that hold Acylius to Yukdom is no reason to destroy your laboratory."

**36. market**  
Trying to market the idea of peace to the Yuk people is a discouraging task to take upon yourself - but it only takes one look at Aelia's face for Acylius to know that his efforts will be worth it in the end.

**37. technology**  
It comes down to a trade of resources for technology, in the end, and the affair is finally settled to the satisfaction of everyone - and the boundless joy of Aelia and Acylius.

**38. gift**  
"Nothing," said Acylius, "will ever equal the gift of your presence in my life, Aelia."

**39. smile**  
One of the greatest joys in Aelia's life is the smile that comes onto Acylius's face when he sees her.

**40. innocence**  
Aelia can see that trying to create peace between their two peoples is tearing away Acylius's innocence, piece by piece, and she wishes that she could return it.

**41. completion**  
For Aelia, the completion of each new project now brings a sense of sadness as well as satisfaction - because Acylius is only rarely around to witness her triumphs.

**42. clouds**  
The clouds that gather over the sky in the City of Flowers as Acylius leaves again are nothing compared to the clouds that gather in Aelia's heart.

**43. sky**  
Among the many, many gifts that Aelia has given Acylius, the one that he treasures the most is the sky - because without her, he never would have learned to fly.

**44. heaven**  
There is always a brief moment in his visits where they both forget that he will have to leave - those moments, with their promise of eternity, are their heaven.

**45. hell**  
For Acylius, nothing equals the hell of finding out about some new war effort too late to warn the Joyces and knowing that Aelia will throw herself into the front line to defend her home.

**46. sun**  
He climbs up to the top of the Stump and watches the sun rise, knowing that she is doing the same, and hoping, like him, that the day will come when they can watch it rise together.

**47. moon**  
Soaring in the moonlight among the fireflies, hand in hand with Aelia, is an experience that Acylius can hardly credit - it seems too magical to be real.

**48. waves**  
Gentle waves lap at Aelia's carapace as Acylius slides into the pool and slips his arms around her waist.

**49. hair**  
He watches the tiny green hairs sink into cracks, and smiles with satisfaction as Aelia's gift begins its riotous growth through the corridor around Krabo's room.

**50. supernova**  
Colour blooms in supernovas in the sky above the Great Flower as the Joyces celebrate the ascension of King Acylius - and, of course, his new queen.


	3. lover100: 85 Diary

This is a far future!fic, so there are OCs as POV characters. They may or may not appear again, because they were stupidly fun to write - not to mention that this provides a very different perspective on things.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Insektors.

* * *

One thing that Asilus had discovered in his scholarly career was that the difficulties of translation are rarely appreciated by the uninitiated. This was why he was currently face-down in a drift of paper on his desk, with eyes that felt like they were trying to twitch their way out of his head. A jumble of words seemed to have imprinted themselves on the inside of his eyelids, and none of them made any sense.

Since he didn't even have the energy to form and articulate a curse against his employer, he mumbled something incoherent but ill-meaning into his drafted translations.

"So...can I get you anything?" enquired a voice. "Pillow? Drink? Convenient cliff to jump off?"

Asilus turned his head enough to get one eye above the edge of the paper piles. There was a red-orange stick insect standing in front of his desk, arms casually folded. "How would you bring me a cliff?" Asilus asked.

"It'd probably take some doing," said the stick insect, mock-thoughtfully. "But if all else fails, I could always drag you there and drop you off myself."

Asilus let his head roll back into its hollow with a groan. That was Tonans - best friend, roommate -

"Seriously, Asilus, this has got to stop. You have no appreciation for my stellar wit when you're this tired."

- pain in the behind.

Asilus made himself sit up. The sheet of paper that had rested under his cheek had stuck to it, so he was forced to endure Tonans' snickering as he pulled it off. The ink must not have been entirely dry when he let his head fall on it.

The scholar examined it dolefully. The words were smeared, but he couldn't tell if that was because he'd smudged the ink or whether his vision was failing him. The thought of having to redo even one page made him want to weep; he had so much more to do as it was.

He looked pleadingly at Tonans and held out the page.

"Is this clear? Does it make sense?"

His friend took the paper and started to read. His antennae flicked up. "_...wings like twilight...eyes that glitter like stars...more lovely than the most beautiful of flowers_...please don't tell me that this is for my cousin."

Asilus flinched, then sat up straight and glared. "Don't be ridiculous." He had been thinking about copying out that particular passage and giving it to Kathy; it seemed appropriate. But Tonans' incredulous tone was making him reconsider that particular plan.

"If you're trying for poetry, you're failing." Yes. Definitely reconsidering.

"It's not mine," said Asilus. He shuffled the papers in front of him. "It's part of the translation that I'm working on."

Tonans dropped the page onto the nearest pile. "Translating what? _101 Worst Love Poems of the Late Yuk-Joyce War_?"

"The personal journal of Acylius during his adolescence, actually," said Asilus, stung on behalf of his namesake.

There was a considerable silence.

Finally, Tonans said, "Acylius?"

"Yes."

"As in, _King_ Acylius?"

"Yes?"

"The Peacemaker?"

Asilus raised one antenna. "Is there a point that you are trying to make?"

Tonans ignored this. "The guy who frightened the Prime Minister right off the edge of a runway and into the moat when he tried to launch a personal attack on the Joyces after the treaty was signed? And then left him there for three hours?"

"That story is entirely apocryphal," said Asilus, putting his nose in the air. "The academic community has yet to find any evidence to support such a wild tale."

"Whatever," said Tonans, rolling his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Sadly. And yes, this is the same man. Although..." Asilus picked up the page and checked the date of the entry. "...this is some years before he ascended the throne."

There was another, shorter silence. "You're telling me that the king who bullied the Yuks into making peace with the Joyces devoted pages of his diary to bad love poetry?"

"Essentially, yes." Asilus pushed his chair away from his desk and stretched. "To say that he was smitten with Aelia would be the understatement of the century. Or possibly millennium."

"His wife? Really? I thought that that was just a political match!"

"Oh, no," said Asilus, warming to his subject. "They met years before Acylius became king. Apparently it was close to love at first sight and the feeling was entirely mutual. He made repeated escapes from the City of Shadows to visit her."

Tonans boggled. Clearly, Asilus was upsetting deeply ingrained beliefs. "Escapes? He was the prince!"

Asilus had been prepared for this, and was already searching for the appropriate entry. "Ah, here we are. _I am certainly the worst Yuk that the Stump has ever produced. After all, Krabo says so, so it_ must _be true_." He looked up at Tonans. "Krabo was-"

"Prime Minister at the time, I know," said Tonans, rolling his eyes again.

"Correct," said Asilus, a little miffed. "Anyway, he and Acylius appeared to dislike one another intensely, which is not surprising. Acylius was, as he remarks elsewhere, 'a Joyce at heart', while Krabo was a dyed-in-the-carapace traditional Yuk. So the comment is likely to be sarcastic."

"I got that. So the diary is half mooning over Aelia and half complaining about his tutor?"

"A gross simplification."

"So, more like sixty-forty, then."

"Possibly seventy to thirty."

They shared a grin.

Tonans sat down on the other chair and folded his arms along the back. "So, is it all that bad? The poetry, I mean." He had lost his disbelief, and now looked curious.

"Most of it," said Asilus, who privately considered that Acylius had done very well for being raised in an environment that eschewed beauty in every form.

"Great!"

Asilus looked askance at his friend. "'Great'?"

"You'll have lots of stuff to quote to Kathy. She likes that mushy junk."

Asilus picked up his pen and threw it at Tonans' head.


	4. 1sentence: Theme Set Beta

Another block-breaking exercise. The same warning of sappiness applies.

In relation to theme 18, you can find a brief history of military ballooning on Wikipedia. I have no idea whether the development of the party balloon was at all related.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Insektors.

* * *

**1. walking**  
When the microbe infected Flower City, Aelia had her first taste of what it was like to be ground-bound - and she wondered how Acylius had borne it before he learned to fly.

**2. waltz**  
Most Joyce dances were energetic and enthusiastic (as indeed was most of the music), but the quieter, more sedate waltz was Aelia and Acylius's favorite - it was the perfect excuse to hold one another close.

**3. wishes**  
Aelia had never really believed in the Joyce superstition of sending wishes on windblown petals, but after she met Acylius, she took it up - religiously wishing on each petal for Acylius to be able to get away from the Stump.

**4. wonder**  
Aelia had thought that she had maintained her wonder at the beauty of Flower City despite having lived there her whole life - but then she saw the way that Acylius breathed that beauty in, and knew that she hadn't.

**5. worry**  
They both worried about the other, knowing that when the Yuks launched their next assault on Flower City, they would both be in the thick of things, trying to thwart it.

**6. whimsy**  
Fulgor sometimes teased Aelia about her whimsical streak, but the fact that it had led to her meeting with Acylius gave Aelia all the justification she needed.

**7. waste/wasteland**  
When he mentioned the way that the wasteland depressed him, she took him by the hand and showed him the golden-orange cactus flower that grew there by night - confirmation that beauty could be found in even the most barren of places.

**8. whiskey and rum**  
There were certain drinks among the Joyces that seemed to send the drinker into an even higher state of joy - but Acylius politely declined when offered them, saying that as long as he was with Aelia he was as happy as he could be.

**9. war**  
When he mentioned being confused as to why the war had continued for so long, she hesitantly offered her own deep-seated anger with the Yuks for destroying her work - but this only increased his confusion, because the Joyces had never done more than stop the Yuk incursion.

**10. weddings**  
In the end, with the peace so new and relations so uncertain, they held two weddings - one in the depths of the Stump, and the other below the Prism in Flower City.

**11. birthday**  
Acylius's eighteenth birthday was a miserable affair, a reminder that he was still shackled to his Yuk royal duties - but when he snuck out to Flower City that evening, Aelia organized another party, and suddenly it didn't seem so bad after all.

**12. blessing**  
Getting a blessing out of his mother had been like trying to fly with rocks tied to his feet, but in the end the fact that Aelia made her son happy pulled a reluctant betrothal agreement from Bakrakra's lips.

**13. bias**  
Despite what might have been considered an inevitable bias against Yuks, Aelia still thought that Acylius was the most beautiful young man she'd ever seen.

**14. burning**  
He'd never liked the smell of burning, but after he met Aelia, Acylius actively avoided the Hotsy-Totsy - he hated to think of all her work just going up in smoke.

**15. breathing**  
After being confined to the Stump for so long, getting to Joyce territory and seeing Aelia was like being allowed to breathe again.

**16. breaking**  
Acylius never said anything, but Aelia could see that life in the Stump was taking more and more out of him - and all she could do was hope that it wouldn't break him completely.

**17. belief**  
Sometimes believing that the war could really end took all the effort that they both had.

**18. balloon**  
Aelia's creations certainly brightened up what might otherwise have been sparse decoration, considering the winter season - and it pleased both her and Acylius to have developed them from sketches of old Yuk technology.

**19. balcony**  
If it weren't for the fact that it was such a public place, the balcony that edged the entrance to Flower City would have been a wonderful place to watch the sunset - as it was, teasing comments from Fulgor and knowing giggles from Joyce workers forced Aelia and Acylius to relocate elsewhere.

**20. bane**  
Acylius made a point of innocently mentioning Aelia every time he spoke to his mother - he knew that the way the Queen vented her irritation at the relationship had become the bane of the Prime Minister's life.

**21. quiet**  
It was a sad truth that neither of them could feel entirely comfortable when there was a quiet period in the conflict between their two peoples - such lulls generally meant that Krabo was up to something truly diabolical.

**22. quirks**  
It made Aelia angry to think that every quirk that made Acylius so dear to her - his appreciation of kolor, his love of flowers, his desire for peace - was another reason to the Yuks that their prince was a bad person.

**23. question**  
Questions had come naturally to Acylius from a very young age, but, "Aelia, will you marry me?" stuck in his throat for a long time before he was able to force it out.

**24. quarrel**  
Their relationship was not without its quarrels, but the constant conflicts between their peoples had a way of putting things into perspective.

**25. quitting**  
There were many occasions in Acylius's life when quitting would have been easier - in his attempts to escape, in digging the tunnel to Flower City, in fighting for recognition of his relationship with Aelia - but he considered that the rewards for not giving in had always justified his efforts.

**26. jump**  
Sometimes Aelia was struck by how large a jump she had made, from hating the Yuks to falling in love with one of them.

**27. jester**  
He couldn't stop his mother, but the rest of the Yuks quickly learned that it was a very bad idea to refer to the Joyces using any of their usual insults - particularly when those insults were directed at Aelia.

**28. jousting**  
Acylius was almost coming to look forward to his verbal jousting with Krabo - the stories of their scraps always made Aelia giggle.

**29. jewel**  
Nobody in the Stump objected when Acylius took possession of the strange rock, shiny and colorful - and it did make a wonderful gift to Aelia.

**30. just**  
They laughed later over the mockery that the Yuk law court had been, but the best moment for Acylius was when Aelia told him, "It was a good idea."

**31. smirk**  
Even when he wasn't able to escape, Acylius was easily able to keep track of the situation in Flower City - he just had to observe the presence (or, far more common, the absence) of Krabo's smirk.

**32. sorrow**  
After the initial joy of victory had faded, Aelia was always left to contemplate the destruction of her work - something that Acylius, with his many escape attempts, could relate to all too well.

**33. stupidity**  
Whenever Acylius appeared from his tunnels, Aelia always felt a moment of gentle pity for the Yuks that had been stupid enough to stand in his way.

**34. serenade**  
Fulgor's surprise serenade was doubtless well-meant, but that didn't stop Aelia from shouting at him about interrupting their moment - and it was a measure of Acylius's anger that he made no attempt to stop her.

**35. sarcasm**  
"Oh, absolutely," said Acylius, thwarted again and at his most sarcastic, when his tutor asked if he was going to give up his ridiculous escape attempts - and his liaisons with a _Joyce_.

**36. sordid**  
It all seemed so sordid, putting a price on peace - but Aelia's suggestion of the trade of specifically-grown flower wood for new technology finally quieted the majority of Yuk objections.

**37. soliloquy**  
Aelia had always had a habit of talking aloud as she worked, one that she had always meant to stop - but then she met Acylius, and realized that talking aloud wasn't always a bad thing.

**38. sojourn**  
Acylius's sojourns in Flower City were all too brief, and Aelia treasured each one of them.

**39. share**  
They helped one another realize that their peoples shared far more things than they had initially thought.

**40. solitary**  
Acylius couldn't find it in himself to be bothered by the amount of time he spent alone in the Stump, since life there seemed even more distasteful when compared to life in Flower City.

**41. nowhere**  
There was nowhere that Acylius would rather be than at Aelia's side - or vice versa.

**42. neutral**  
Acylius shifted the Koleopter out of neutral with his heart in this mouth, thinking that the presence of Aelia - who had decided that she wanted to see how a Yuk machine worked - was very distracting.

**43. nuance**  
It was amazing to Aelia that Acylius, who had grown up in the most drab environment possible, was better at detecting nuances in kolor than some Joyces.

**44. near**  
The completion of the tunnel connecting the Stump and Flower City was a great thing for both of them - it made the other seem so much nearer.

**45. natural**  
The natural outcome of the limits on the time they spent together was that they cherished every moment.

**46. horizon**  
With Flower City always visible on the horizon, Acylius could never falter.

**47. valiant**  
Despite their valiant efforts, Acylius and Aelia could never quite forget during their encounters that soon Acylius would have to leave.

**48. virtuous**  
Aelia felt positively virtuous each time that Acylius related some tale of woe and she didn't immediately fly off to the Stump to pick a fight with those involved.

**49. victory**  
The party that followed the ceremony under the Great Prism was not just a celebration of their marriage - it was a celebration of victory, for all that they had fought for.

**50. defeat**  
One by one, one after the other, the Yuks were forced to admit defeat - there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that would keep their Prince Acylius apart, or away, from Aelia.


End file.
